Cake Pops

Recipe Review: What do you do when your cupcakes fall flat? You make cake pops.

It was memorial day weekend and I had my sights set on making some patriotic red white and blue cupcakes for a barbecue that we were having at the house. Problem is that when I took my red velvet cupcakes out of the oven they didn't have  happy little rounded tops. Instead they had flat tops- and by the time they had cooled completely they were concave. They still tasted amazing... but they didn't look amazing, and well I have a "This is Sparta" mentality about cupcakes and inferior cupcakes will not be allowed.

So what was I to do with all of these sad flat little cupcakes? Make cake pops of course! Cake pops are quite trendy and have been popping up everywhere. They're a really nice size, just about two bites, and hold up better than normal baked goods so can be made a few days in advance. Between cake flavors, candy coating colors (Wilton has about 20 different colors you can get at Michael's) and decorations you have endless possibilities. I've seen people make some snazzy cake pops in fun shapes, but I'm not that fancy. (Yet...)

How to Make Cake Pops

adapted from: Bakerella.com

yeild: about 2 dozen cake pops

Ingredients:

One batch of your desired flavor of cake, baked an cooled

(I used about 2 dozen cupcakes- this would translate to 1 box of cake mix, or one 13x9 cake)

2 cups desired flavor of icing

1 bag of Wilton candy melts

sprinkles or any desired decorations

24 lollypop sticks

Use a food processor to blend cake into crumbs. Add icing and kneed with hands until you reach a doughy constancy. Roll into small balls and set on a baking sheet. Pop into fridge to chill.

Melt the chocolate candy melts in the microwave according to package directions. You don't want to get them too hot, just melted. Poke holes into cake balls about half way through with lollypop stick. Dip stick into melted chocolate and press into cake ball. Return to fridge for 5 minutes.

Dip cake balls into chocolate and tap to remove any excess. Apply any sprinkles or other decorations while chocolate is still soft. Set aside for 5-10 minutes while chocolate hardens.

printable recipe

I apologize that I don't have prep step photos- my camera's memory card corrupted and needed to be reformatted so I lost those :-(

Cake pops aren't hard to make- but in my experience they are a bit tedious. I can never seem to truly "dip" the pop into the melted chocolate without it falling off the stick. That would be so easy. Instead I end up using a large spoon and holding the pop horizontally and twirling it into the spoon of chocolate, rather than inverting it completely. I use floral foam to stick the pops into while they are setting, and this works well for when you are serving them too. I brought a few left over pops to work the next day, and one of the managers actually thought that I had bought them at Starbucks for everyone! I love when anything I make is mistaken for a professional product. For this batch I used red velvet cake, vanilla buttercream frosting, and white chocolate melts that I tinted blue. I've done these before with chocolate cake too. I recommend reserving some of the cake crumbs and frosting so you can adjust the mixture until you reach a consistency that is slightly drier than cookie dough. You don't want make them too dry or too moist. Basically this is the perfect thing to taste test until you get it just right. (taste testing is just awful right?? heh.) Check out the Bakerella website for some adorable cake pop ideas from the cake pop master.